Come And Take It
by SynthKidd
Summary: "Come And Take It" is a tribute to my grandfather, William T. Hall, who just recently passed away. It's the story of a magic sword from a comic book come to life, which revitalizes and saves him on his deathbed. Unfortunately, the god who made the sword, wants it back, and like God Country, this story won't have a happy ending...
1. Chapter 1

Hey there folks. I want to tell you all a story about the greatest man I've ever known. That man is my Grandfather, William T Hall. Now, most people that are close to me are under the impression that he died from complications of a stroke. That's… not exactly what happened. Now, he did have a stroke, multiple strokes in fact. That much is true. The real reason he died is much more… fantastical. No, it wasn't a stroke, or old age, or any of the things we expect death to come from. The truth is… My grandfather died fighting a god, the god of all gods, with a sword that was forged in the heart of a dying star. At the end of this story, you will learn like I did, that gods, heroes, and villains, they don't just exist in comics and movies. They are as real as the air we breathe, and the food we eat, and the endings of their stories aren't always happy.

All of this started the night he passed. Well, the night we thought he was going to pass. The date was March the Seventh. It was around four-thirty in the morning. I had fallen asleep upstairs in my grandfathers recliner. My aunt and uncle were there, sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. We had my grandfather set up in a bed in the dining room. It was bitter cold and windy that day, and it only got worse as the night went on. When my uncle had woken me back up, we were in the middle of a full fledged blizzard. I'm sure you all remember it. The wind rattled all the windows in the house as we gathered around him. My grandmother, god bless her soul, was asleep in the master bedroom. A stroke had taken her mental faculties a year earlier, so she wasn't really aware of what was going on.

As we sat beside him and prayed, his breathing became slower, and more shallow. With each breath, I noticed a low humming noise start to get louder and louder. As the sound got louder and louder, an ungodly green glow started to light up the room. I looked outside, and the blizzard had turned into… something else. The closest thing I could compare it to is a tornado made of snow. At this point, my entire family noticed what was going on. None of us could believe what we were seeing. By then, that low humming noise became a roar. The wind was so fast and fierce that it shattered all the windows in the house. The house itself started to shake as if it were being torn out of the ground. I was terrified. A feeling of impending doom washed over me. I took my grandfather's hand, and I closed my eyes as tight as I could. All of a sudden, my grandfathers hand felt… warm. The noise, the violent shaking of the house, was gone. When I opened my eyes, what I saw before me changed my perception of reality. It shook me to my core.

When I opened my eyes, I saw my grandfather, standing tall on the bed we thought he would die in. An orange-yellow glow, like sunlight, surrounded his body. In his right hand, was a sword. It wasn't just any old sword, either. I would've recognized it anywhere. The sword's name, because of course it had a name, was Valofax. Now, you may be asking yourself how I know all of this. Well, believe it or not, the very sword my grandfather was holding, was from a comic book. One of my favorite comic books. A book called God Country. I still have a hard time believing it myself. After all, superheroes, gods, and magic swords aren't real. Or they aren't supposed to be. There it was though. Right in front of my face. Right in front of my family's faces.

As the initial shock of what we just witnessed wore off, my family became overjoyed. There we all were, sitting at his deathbed, preparing to send him off to wherever we might go when we die. There he was, standing tall, giving off a warmth and energy that filled the room with love. I was overjoyed, but I was also terrified. After all, If Valofax was real, then that meant his maker, Attum, the God of Kings, was also real. Or, maybe he wasn't. What I thought to be reality broke that night. I tried to be optimistic, but I could feel in my gut that a storm was coming. I knew I had to prepare my family for what was to come, but right then and there, all I wanted to do was celebrate. I had my grandfather back, and that's all I cared about at that moment in time. Like I said though, a storm was coming. One none of us would be prepared for.


	2. Chapter 2

After processing the image of my grandfather holding a magic sword and glowing like the sun, I was the first to speak. "P-Paw Paw? What just happened? Are you okay?" My grandfather smiled and cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean? I feel great! I feel like I'm thirty years old again sport! Say... what's wrong? Why do you all look so sad, and why am I standing on a bed in the dining room?" It was at this point I realized that his world stopped making sense after the strokes he had. The last day he clearly remembered was the day he went to the hospital.

I looked up at him and started to explain. "Well Paw Paw, you had a stroke... a few strokes actually. You had one at the hospital that was major, and it crippled you. Don't... Don't you remember?" The smile on his face turned into contemplation. I could see the gears turning in his head. "Well, I remember going to the hospital. After that, everything is... fuzzy. I remember feeling trapped by something. I remember feeling lost in time. I kept seeing people that were important to me, that died long ago. Then, a couple minutes ago, I heard what sounded like... singing. Like angels. I opened my eyes and I was home again."

My heart sank as soon as those words left his mouth. You see, at this point, things were playing out exactly like that damn comic book I mentioned earlier. Emmett, the main character, heard singing before Valofax came to him. Now my grandfather had experienced the same damn thing. I had to say something. "Paw Paw... Do you realize what you're holding in your right hand?" He looked over at Valofax and chuckled. "Well... isn't that something." He started to hop off the bed when reality slapped my uncle in the face. "Pop, you were just on your deathbed. Stay in bed. Now is not the time." My grandfather shot him a look with eyes like daggers. "Shut up, Bill."

My Grandfather hopped off the bed and walked around the living room, stretching his arms and legs. He started to inspect Valofax, looking for any kind of inscriptions or markings that would help him make sense of all of this. There were none. It was surreal, seeing a 96 year old man, previously crippled from strokes, waving around an eight foot magic sword like it weighed the same as a feather. The sword hadn't even started talking yet. Boy, my family was gonna get a kick out of that one.

Thinking now was the time to tell the family what was going on, I ran downstairs and grabbed my copy of God Country. I came back up the stairs and told the family to sit down and listen, because I knew what was going on. Or, I thought I knew. We all sat down in the living room, and I showed them the story of Emmett, and Valofax, and Attum, and the dying star that Valofax was forged in.  
After finishing, my grandfather didn't say anything for a few minutes. I could tell he was processing everything. Another five minutes went by, and he finally spoke.

"Jimmy... what you just showed me... None of that is real. Or should be real. I can't argue with my own eyes though, and it sure looks and feels to be real. Now I don't know much about gods, or comic books, or magic swords. What I do know, is that I got this sword now, and I got it for a reason sport. Maybe something's coming. Maybe I just got lucky. All I know is that I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere, and if whoever made this sword wants it back... they can come and take it."


End file.
